31+ Banks, 50+ Merchants, 25+ Apps with Apple Pay Now

There is an old Chinese saying: “A journey of thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Apple Pay continues to add more companies to its list of partners. Apple recently announced that they have signed up more banks, retail stores and start-ups for Apple Pay. As reported by the New York Times, the new companies backing Apple Pay include SunTrust, Barclaycard and USAA. Ten more banks including TD Bank North America and Commerce Bank have joined the Apple Pay bandwagon. With the addition of these financial institutions, Apple cites that it now supports the cards that represent 90% of credit card purchase volume in US. In figures, Apple Pay is now active across 31 plus banks.

Besides banks, Apple has also roped in some prominent retailers. Staples now accepts the big-box retailer across its 1400 US locations. Grocery chains like Winn-Dixie and Albertsons now accept Apple Pay as well. Amway Center, a popular stadium is now accepting Apple Pay for its retail, food and beverage stands. Considering transactions so far, Whole Foods cited that it has processed more than 150,000 Apple Pay transactions. McDonalds’ cited that Apple Pay accounted for 50% of its NFC based transactions in November. Apple Pay has now crossed the 50 merchants mark for acceptance.

Apple Pay still accounts for only a small fraction of total transactions. But Apple has gained more traction for its payments service in a short period of time as compared to its competitors. Retailers and payment companies are hoping that Apple Pay gains mass consumer adoption. Apple Pay’s robust system does solve quite a number of problems that did exist with electronic payments.

As per Forrester Research, mobile payments volume will reach $142 billion by 2019. Denee Carrington, a Forrester Analyst, told New York Times that Apple Pay is expected to reach $34 billion in e-commerce volume in US by 2019. Apple Pay might gain popularity on international platforms as well. Speculations are rising around possible a tie-up between Apple Pay and Alipay.

Apple Pay is driving the growth of NFC mobile payments acceptance, resulting in a positive effect on companies like Verifone, First Data and others. Payment companies like Braintree, Stripe and TSYS are benefitting from in-app payments having integrated Apple Pay into their systems. Apple Pay is already active across 25 plus apps as an in-app payment option.

Ray has keen interest in the area of devices, OS and wireless technologies. He is a Mobile Technology enthusiast and believes that Mobility is going to completely change the way we do Payments and Commerce. He wishes to share this belief with the world by providing such content through LetsTalkPayments. Ray has done his engineering as well as MBA.

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